Community View: Gun owners have a responsibility

Dec. 28, 2012

With the U.S. Capitol in the background, gun-control advocates protest against the National Rifle Association on Dec. 21 outside the hotel where NRA held a news conference addressing the Newtown shooting. / AP FILE PHOTO

Written by

Bennett L. Gershman

An Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day rally at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield in March, after a panel of federal appeals court judges in Chicago struck down the only statewide ban on carrying concealed weapons. / AP FILE PHOTO

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The outcry following the recent publication by The Journal News/LoHud.com of an interactive website featuring the names and addresses of licensed gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties was predictable.

This is not the first time that a newspaper has published the names of gun owners, but it comes at a time when gun owners are obviously sensitive to the issue, and probably defensive about owning guns. The furious reaction to the publication of public information that the public certainly has a right to know about recalls the old adage that if you throw a rock down a hole and hear a scream, you know you’ve hit something.

Publishing the names of “johns,” scofflaws, and abortion doctors doesn’t stir much controversy. Then why the furor? Because the news report comes on the heels of the horrific massacre of 20 first-grade girls and boys and six school staff members in Newtown, Conn., by a deranged gunman, and probably causes gun owners to reflect on the carnage, the fact that there are nearly 300 million guns in America, the reasons that guns are so pervasive and accessible, and whether responsible gun owners — as most of these licensed gun owners surely are — should be doing more to address the problem of illegal gun ownership in the U.S. and its tragic consequences.

Now that the right of people to own guns has been given constitutional status by the Supreme Court, one would hope that lawful gun owners would take a moment to reflect on the importance of this fundamental right, the costs of being afforded this right, and the responsibilities that go with this right. All rights have costs — the right to speak can invade someone else’s privacy; the rights of criminal defendants can result in unsuccessful prosecutions of guilty people; the rights of gays and lesbians have legal consequences that upset some people who find the conduct immoral. And the rights of gun owners might result in their public identification, as happened this week.

Meaningful action

However, one would hope that gun owners, whether or not they are members of the National Rifle Association, might be able to transfer their outrage over the website to more meaningful actions. There are so many responsible and nonthreatening actions that they could be pursuing, and as gun owners their collective voice would be especially powerful in demanding that those lawmakers who are scared of and subservient to the NRA have the courage to support responsible legislation. One logical piece of legislation that should command the support of every rational citizen would be to prevent the easy purchase of guns by criminals and the mentally ill at gun shows, flea markets, and the Internet. Indeed, anyone can purchase on the Internet today and have delivered tomorrow the weapon that killed the children in Newtown, the moviegoers in Aurora, Colo., the volunteer firefighters in upstate New York, and the thousands of young black and Hispanic men killed each year in cities across the country. Gun homicides are the leading cause of death for young black males — they are eight times more likely to die a gun death than young white males, but it’s so routine it doesn’t even make the local news.

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Use the outrage to demand that lawmakers in Congress ban the kinds of “dangerous and unusual” weapons that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia identified in the landmark Heller decision that could lawfully be regulated, and he gave as an example the M16 military rifle, the weapon that is the model for the fabulously popular and powerful Bushmaster AR-15, which was used in the recent mass shootings, and the detachable magazines that can hold so many rounds. We don’t know how many bullets were fired by the Newtown gunman, but we do know that several of the children were struck with 11 bullets in a matter of seconds.

Use the outrage to persuade federal lawmakers to allow federal law enforcement agencies to establish a national computerized gun registry to track and record all gun transactions. A central database would make it so much easier for law enforcement officials to trace guns, keep them out of the hands of criminals, and better prevent gun crimes. The NRA opposes such a registry, claiming it poses a threat to the Second Amendment, and those lawmakers who quake before the NRA meekly go along.

Romance with guns

America’s romance with guns is longstanding, and not about to abate. Everybody seems to be sympathetic to gun violence, but offers no solutions, except maybe the questionable suggestion from the NRA that every “good guy” should be armed with a gun to stop the “bad guys.” Was George Zimmerman a good guy or a bad guy? Depends on your perspective, I guess. One point should be absolutely clear, however, even to those gun owners screaming about being identified. Fewer guns mean fewer fatalities.

But don’t try to make that argument to the multibillion-dollar gun industry.